Ken Kutaragi told VideoGamesChronicle at the Game Republic New Horizons event in Middlesbrough that he understands the frustration among fans after Sony announced PlayStation will end support for physical discs in January 2028.
Speaking to reporter William D'Angelo, Kutaragi said physical discs have become a metaphor for owning games and that he sympathises with that mentality. He added that network connectivity is now ubiquitous and that continuing physical media support is not economically reasonable.
Kutaragi noted he is no longer PlayStation's CEO but said Sony Interactive Entertainment includes many people who came from Gaikai and streaming companies. He said that perspective helps explain why some executives view PlayStation as a content terminal rather than a purely hardware product, and that shift has caused friction with game enthusiasts, as he described to VideoGamesChronicle.
Career And Influence
Ken Kutaragi is widely known as the architect of PlayStation. Born in Tokyo on 2 August 1950, he joined Sony in the mid 1970s and worked in its research labs, according to his profile. He designed the SPC700 sound chip used in Nintendo's SNES while at Sony.
He led development of the original PlayStation and its successors. Profiles note PlayStation and PlayStation 2 together sold in very large numbers, with PS2 reaching 100 million units at one point and the combined early PlayStation family cited as exceeding 230 million units in homes, as reported in the provided profiles.
Kutaragi rose to senior roles at Sony, including chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, before stepping down from executive duties in 2007 and leaving the honorary chairman role in 2011, as noted in the biographies. He later took executive and advisory posts outside Sony, serving as president and CEO of Cyber AI Entertainment and joining boards including Kadokawa Group Holdings, Nojima Corporation, and Rakuten.
Profiles also record academic and industry recognition. He received a lifetime achievement award in 2014 and served as a visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University. In 2020 he became CEO of Ascent Robotics and he later took on a dean and professorial post at Kindai University, according to the supplied materials.
